


Evelyn Harkness

by cathinda1



Category: Torchwood
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-06 23:17:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13421715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cathinda1/pseuds/cathinda1
Summary: Evelyn spent many years without anyone to call a family after she was forced to flee from her home and come to Earth. However after joining Torchwood in 1880, she couldn't help but feel that she finally belonged. Then she met Captain Jack Harkness and her whole world was changed. But to her, he changed it for the better, no matter how bad things get.





	Evelyn Harkness

**Author's Note:**

> All chapters will follow an episode or I will replace an episode with a chapter, please don't just hate on it.  
> Disclaimer I don't own Torchwood or it's characters

Torchwood had been a part of Evrianna Lyla Hanas’ life for as long as the organisation had existed. However Evrianna Lyla Hanas didn’t exist anymore, that name hadn’t existed for nearly 800 years having been abandoned in 1233 for the name Evelyn Leanne Hander. Evelyn Leanne Hander lasted 257 years when King Henry VII had had made her his royal advisor earning her the title The Wise One. That was all Evelyn went by for 300 years until she changed her name to Evelyn Norah Richards in order to fall into witness protection when she saw a murder take place in the royal court. Moving to Wales, she found a life for herself and was finally free, free of the hurt, and the lies, and the pain. However freedom can go quickly like in 1879 when Queen Victoria asked Evelyn to set up Torchwood 3 – Cardiff.

Evelyn didn’t do too well to begin with but after the first few years passed Evelyn found her feet and became a strong leader of Torchwood, usually though, she stayed out of the messy work, remaining in the shadows as her team got their hands dirty, it was rare that a team even knew her true identity. That’s where she found herself in 1899 having been running Torchwood 3 for 20 years but still only looking 25, standing and watching two of her women torture a man, she held his file in her hand, flicking through the pages, Evelyn skim read while listening to the man answer questions,  
“OK, that’s enough.” She muttered in a nonchalant tone, not looking up from the file as she walked, not until she was directly in front of the man,  
“Leave.” She ordered the two women. The two didn’t hesitate but Evelyn didn’t move until the heavy, steel door had slammed shut behind them. Evelyn looked at the man before her, she looked him up and down and could tell that she was making him uncomfortable.

Ten long minutes passed before Evelyn stopped looking the man up and down, stopped examining him like he was a piece of meat. Letting out a sigh, Evelyn unstrapped the man’s wrists,  
“Sorry. I just had to make sure they weren’t spying, if you cooperate I’ll unstrap you. Agreed?” The man nodded feverishly and Evelyn unbuckled him from the chair. Walking away from him towards a desk, she motioned him to follow,  
“Now I have a fair amount of intel on you Jack Harkness, or do you prefer Captain?” The man let out an exasperated chuckle,  
“Jack’s fine.” Evelyn looked at him with curious eyes,  
“Strange…” She mumbled before clearing her throat, “anyway, as I was saying, I have a lot of intel on you… Jack… but I would prefer for you to tell me what I need to know. So just answer my questions and we’ll see where we go from there, ok?” Once again, Jack nodded,  
“Right so what’s your full birth name?” Evelyn placed exaggeration on the word ‘birth’ knowing that the man in front of her wasn’t called what he claimed to be,  
“Umm… Javic. Javic Piotr Thane.” Evelyn nodded, noting down what he was saying,  
“What do you prefer being called?” Her voice was gentle and harmonic, comforting and terrifying all at once,  
“Well… Jack…” His voice was definitely filled with uncertainty so Evelyn sent him a smile.  
“How did you survive a bullet to the head, Jack?” She wasn’t going to be delicate, she needed to know what she was dealing with,  
“I don’t know –” Evelyn punched her hand against the desk as she rose to her feet, leaning over him,  
“Don’t lie to me. If you do, know that I can hurt you worse than any petty pain they want to inflict on you.” She hissed, her beetle coloured eyes making her look demonic as black orbs shined with a green tinge,  
“I’m not, something happened to me somewhere far away and I have no idea what. All I know is that I can't die.” Jack couldn’t help but tremble, this woman leaning towards him was trying to break him and it was definitely something that she had done to others. Slowly she sat back down in her chair,  
“Could I ask you a question?” Jack asked, treading lightly as if trying to edge around a sleeping bear in an echoing cave while wearing lead boots. Evelyn looked at him through thick lashes while her head was still looking at the file on the desk, his file,  
“Who are you? I mean how come you have their respect while they look at least ten years older than you?” Evelyn laughed, a cold and harsh noise with no warmth,  
“Honestly, you humans think you’re the only species –” Jack scoffed but quickly silenced when he saw her glare,  
“My people were gods, we stood above the universe. Watching. Nurturing. Then the War began… your miniscule mind wouldn’t ever be able to comprehend such a war.” Jack looked at her for a few seconds,  
“And what’s your birth name?” He asked, repeating her words from what felt like hours ago, Evelyn didn’t even look up, let alone respond so Jack decided to try again.  
“Fancy getting a coffee?” She sent him a disapproving glare,  
“No.” She motioned to the door, “go and see Emily.” With that final line, the mysterious woman disappeared into the shadows. As Jack left, Evelyn couldn’t take her eyes off him, there was something different about that man…

Jack couldn’t believe that he’d become a freelancer for Torchwood, of all things why the fuck was it Torchwood. He shook his head but went on with his first assignment. For some reason that was unknown to him, Jack was unable to get his mind away from the mysterious woman – he’d dubbed her Shadow for now – the way she’d treated him… Jack shook his head in an attempt to clear it, no luck. He had to focus! It took him two days to complete his mission and deliver the blowfish humanoid to Torchwood,  
“Not bad, Harkness.” Called Shadow, Jack hadn’t even noticed her in the room, he turned to smirk at her. She looked softer today, well she probably hadn’t just watched a man be tortured, ok so he was slightly bitter that she’d let that happen,  
“What’d you want me to do now?” His voice was careless, the team looked over to him in shock, clearly no one spoke to the Mystery like that,  
“Well, now you take me for coffee.” She said with a shrug of her shoulders, the team looked at the pair confused, where the hell would they get coffee, it was 1899 for Christ sake, where the fuck would they get coffee,  
“How about beer?” He asked daringly, She smirked,  
“Fine, let’s go.” He held an arm out to her but she walked in front of him, lifting a fur lined coat from its hook, walking out the door with him following swiftly.  
On the street, Evelyn lead Jack towards her favourite pub, leading him inside, Jack raised an eyebrow, this place obviously didn’t welcome women often but the regulars nodded at Evelyn. Taking a seat in the snug, Jack went and brought them each a tankard of mild ale, sitting across from her, he couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow,  
“Do I get to know a name?” The woman before him silently chuckled,  
“What name do you want?”  
“Yours.”   
“Evelyn Norah Richards.” 

No one quite knows how far two people are willing to go for each other, no one really does, not truly. At least, no one who didn’t know Jack Harkness and his wife, Evelyn Harkness. People who know them say that they learnt love from them. Evelyn would tell you that she learnt love from feeling a strange connection to a mysterious man who’d been shot in the head and woke up. Before meeting him, she’d tell you how she’d sworn against loving but now she’d tell you that loving was the first correct thing she’d done in over 600 years. He’d taught her that love isn’t about finding someone who is perfect, it’s about seeing an imperfect person perfectly. Jack would tell you that he learnt how to truly love from Evelyn, how she hated men – and women – and how she’d been hurt so bad that she thought the damage was irreparable so he didn’t promise to fix her problems, he promised to never let her face them alone. That’s why she married him, because he didn’t want some woman who treated him like god and she didn’t want some man who treated her like a slave, they both wanted to be someone’s equal, and that’s what they were.

Life was perfect for a while, the couple welcomed a beautiful son into their family in 1925, Evelyn held him close and gentle while he was young, by 1935, she held him close and determined while her husband went to war as part of the American air force. By 1939, their house was blown to shreds, Evelyn woke up, her son didn’t. Charles was 14. Evelyn joined the nurses 6 weeks later. By 1941 she was shipped out to Pearl Harbor, the happiness that had come into her life was destroyed quickly after that, she didn’t know quite what to do anymore. She was called back to Torchwood in February 1942, from there she was sent to a safe house, she remained there until the end of the war.

Losing their son was something that Jack and Evelyn had never expected, nor did they expect to have twins on the 5th of August 1975. Alice Melissa and Corey Matthew were gifts, Evelyn said, she treated them like gifts too, keeping them close, taking time from Torchwood to spend with her children while working with UNIT as director. Alice and Corey took up a lot of Evelyn’s time, she’d never planned on being a full time mum, when it was Charles, it was different, he was born and lived through a war. Alice and Corey, they just enjoyed playing games and staying out in the woods around the house until sunset. If told to choose some of the worst years of her life, she’d tell you 1939 and 1985, Corey developed an infection, the doctors were calling it, some infection. It took Corey away only a week after diagnosis, Evelyn sat by his hospital bed every day, a cassette playing Elvis, Blue Hawaii constantly, when he died, he made it clear that he wanted Can’t Help Falling in Love and Heaven Can Wait by Meatloaf to be played at the funeral, Alice said that she thought he should go with happy songs because he was always happy. She’d cried for months after Corey’s death, she couldn’t get through a full day at school without crying.

By 1995, Alice was moving out, she’d fallen out with Evelyn, saying she was the reason Corey died, it’d hit Evelyn hard, she’d said things she would’ve never said. She even refused to go and see Alice when she got married or had her son, not even when Alice divorced. Jack stuck beside his wife but didn’t lose all contact with his only living child. By 2002, Alice wasn’t the only living child of Jack and Evelyn, they welcomed their daughter, Bethany Hope Harkness, into the world on the 12th of June. Jack and Evelyn swore that they wouldn’t let their daughter befall any harm they also decided that she would be raised around Torchwood, at the moment, it was only Jack and Evelyn so it wouldn’t be too unusual for the child but it meant Evelyn wasn’t going sir crazy stuck at home. 

It didn’t take them long to build a team but they didn’t just build a team, they built a home, a family, a life, a reason. For all of them. For Owen Harper. For Toshiko Sato. Ianto Jones. Jack. Bethany. Evelyn gained them too but she also gained a new fight because now, now she would fight to survive.


End file.
